Feelings expressed in artist’s unique style - Artist Profile, Ginney Deavoll

It seems winter has come early as cold, rainy skies blanket Hahei Beach. I’m here though to talk with a very talented artist, Ginney Deavoll, who exclaims this weather means she can break out the Ugg boots and paint.

Ginney is a first time exhibitor at the Whitianga Lions Art Expo at King’s Birthday Weekend from opening night May 31 to June 3.
Seated in her lounge my eyes are frequently drawn to one of her latest paintings – a movement of gannets in a dive towards the sea. Each time I look at the painting my heart quivers as I am transported for a split second back to the coastal hills above Muriwai Beach and the sight of gannets on the wing catching those coastal wind currents to glide. 

Painting New Zealand's backyard

Ginney says the message she wants to convey in her paintings is about appreciating what we have here in New Zealand and caring for it so that future generations will be able to experience it in the same way.

“It’s always been about our backyard, about New Zealand and our remote places, all of our wilderness and flora and fauna. And I always thought that if I can paint my wonder and awe that I feel about it, and if that can shine through all my work, then my hope is that other people will see it and it will inspire them to go and have a look for themselves, whether it’s the local bush walk, a snorkel trail, or to go and do a great walk or even if it is further afield. I think the more people that go and explore our country, understand how amazing it is, then the better decisions are made and it’s there for future generations. That has always been the underlying reason or why.”

Ginney attributes her painting ability to having grown up in a very artistic family and she can’t think of a time when she didn’t love capturing ideas and images on canvas or paper. That same artistic gift is apparent now in her young children, Jonty and Felix. Their works feature in her studio space, displayed with pride.

Having grown up in the South Island, Ginney was drawn to the great outdoors for adventure and employment as a rock climbing and abseil guide for a few different outdoor centres. Along the way she discovered kayaking. When she moved to live in Hahei it gave her an opening for working in the outdoors and further inspiration to paint about our coastal environment and its occupants.  To view the underwater scenes is like swimming with them.

“Kayak guiding became the thing that I did most in the outdoors. But it was paddling from Hahei to Cape Reinga with Tyrell (her partner) and painting afterwards, I got about five or six paintings in, then I realised that I was painting about the trip. It wasn’t intentional. That’s when it kind of clicked for me. Before then I enjoyed painting. I painted a variety of things but there didn’t seem to be a focus. I liked it, but there was no driving force. So that kayak trip was a big moment, that’s probably where my career started. It was in 2010.” 

Finding that something special

She describes her style as “that thing that I can do that nobody else does that makes my work special. And that’s what every artist needs to find. That thing that only they can do, that is their expression, their way of seeing the world. I paint from experience. I can’t paint a thing or a place that I haven’t been. I come from the South Island so I’ve been to all these places but I actually need to be there and get a feel for the place. It has to be quite recent as well. ” While Ginney takes photos and uses sketchbooks to note down what interests her, the feel of the place is a major part of its attraction to paint it.

It’s about being there and looking at things and the feel of the place. Then going home and designing the painting from my memory and from the feel. Then I’ll go back through my photos and hope that I’ve got the right things to give me the detail that I need to be able to paint it really well. The process of designing and making up the image is all about memory.

Ginney Deavoll - Artist

As for the feel? “They just come up and need to be painted. And some of them have gone through so many of my sketchbooks and they’ve been put aside and put aside and then all of a sudden you’ll look at the picture and think, ‘ah that’s the time for that one’.”

Whale connection

On another wall is a circular canvas with a whale and here Ginney explains that her paintings generally have a story to them.

“I think I drew that picture in 2012 or 2013 and I really wanted to paint it. I had the round canvas for a long time too. But I didn’t connect the two. It just went from sketchbook to sketchbook and it felt like a really special painting. It had a certain feel about it, that feel of wonder, and it was just the right time to paint it and it just came together and it had a story to tell.”

The story is from Ginney and Tyrell being kayak guides in the Whitsunday’s in Australia where they were dropped off and did weeklong trips. “Tyrell did four a month and I did one and painted in the other three weeks. And he came home from a trip and he moaned and complained about how he’d been kept awake all night and I said, ‘what happened?’ He’d walked out to the end of the rocks during the night and there was a whale there making all this noise and he didn’t know what it was doing but it kept him awake all night. So I said, ‘what was it doing?’ and he said in the morning it had a calf. So it was giving birth in the channel.” 

And that is the story behind the whale painting and hearing it gives that feeling of wonder and awe, just as Ginney intended.

June Art Expo

The Art Expo is being held in the Whitianga Town Hall from opening night, Friday May 31 until Monday, June 3 with money raised, from a percentage of the art sold, along with raffles and donations all going to Project Mammogram.